Trials, Dunks, And The Devil’s Weed

(Picture originated by me, developed with input from Kevin Arnovitz and .jpg work by Kyle Weidie of Truthaboutit.net-my sincere thanks to them both, obviously.)

So, first off, the trial is over and a verdict has been delivered, so I should start to put together some decent posts fairly soon.

With that said, let’s get some stuff out of the way:

The Dunk Video has been unveiled. One of my great failings, and I say this honestly, as a Cavs blogger is that I just find it pretty hard to take this kind of stuff seriously. I’m sorry, I just find the whole thing kinda funny. But inasmuch as it’s possible to draw conclusions from something like this, here’s what I have:

-This thing, like a lot of things with Kobe and LeBron, is a Rorschach blot. If you hate LeBron, then he’s showing his true prideful nature by whining and having the tape pulled because his ego can’t handle it. If you’re a LeBron guy, this is a nothing incident that’s been blown way out of proportion by people that hate LeBron, and the dunk wasn’t even all that bad to begin with. Hell, one could say that LeBron being so crazy about this shows that LeBron has the kind of intense, borderline sociopathic competitive streak that Jordan was so renowned for. They still tell stories about how Jordan played in every fantasy camp.

Also, it’s obvious and it has been said before, but the coverup here is far worse than the crime. If nobody had said anything, there is no way that video ever becomes news. It’s not all that impressive, and you wouldn’t know it’s LeBron unless someone told you. Unless Jordan Crawford is on the cutting edge of viral marketing strategies, this thing would have gone away instantly if nobody had made a stink. Just another lesson in how turning the other cheek is pretty much always the way to go.

Then, of course, there’s this. I mean, come on now. The president has admitted to past cocaine use to zero fanfare, and we’re going to make a big deal out of an admission that he smoked pot years ago when he was in high school? Please. I love how the meat of the article deals with how LeBron felt like the media and the fame was tough to deal with and he felt like he had a target on his back, then the AP headline is LEBRON TOTES HIT THE WEED! Clearly, he didn’t screw his life or health up all that badly. But to be clear, kids reading: LeBron’s not good at basketball because he smoked weed. This is ridiculous, and this blog is going to treat it as such.

“People ask me if it’s a hard decision going to the NBA, but I’ve made harder decisions,” he says. “Decisions about smoking or going to school, or stealing from a store or not stealing. Those are harder decisions. Yeah, I smoked weed. When it’s around family, around friends, of course you want to try it. I tried it a couple of times. But when you get on the court and your wind ain’t there, that’s when you’ve got to just stop doing it. So the NBA decision ain’t a hard decision compared to that.”

And maybe this, too:

12 Responses to “Trials, Dunks, And The Devil’s Weed”

In camps and and outside the NBA, most NBA players don’t play very hard. (Some don’t even play hard in real NBA games.) So Lebron getting dunked on in his own camp is funny, but nothing of import. There shouldn’t have been any news about it at all. Thanks for pushing back at the Haters.

Anyway, about the dunk – It’s annoying when the consensus is that LeBron instructed Nike to confiscate the video because of his embarrassment about the dunk, and we’ve arrived at this conclusion based on the speculation of a guy who’s probably pissed that his tape got taken in the first place. But because this guy says that’s why he thinks things unfolded the way they did, I’m supposed to accept that as the gospel truth? Am I the only one who finds this whole thing ridiculous?

I like Bron and love the Cavs. However, the dunk is a big deal. What other NBA MVP get’s dunked on by a second rate college player and then the tapes get taken by the sponsor? I don’t know/care if Bron told Nike to take the tapes or not, the point is they did. So somebody clearly was embarrassed byt the dunk and didn’t want it to get out there in public. Now, I don’t think the dunk was that significant – not like it was a poster type of dunk as Bron was out of position to defend anyway. But the story of how Nike took the tapes – that’s HUGE. I’m assuming also that the angle and clarity of the media tapes were a lot better than what’s been recorded by the cell phone videos. So we really don’t know how ‘bad’ the dunk may appear.

The weed thing – that shouldn’t even make the news. No big deal there – unless he got arrested for it – after being in the NBA. But as a HS kid, who really cares?

How is the dunk tape thing “HUGE”? It’s not like a crime was committed. Also, why does no one mention the fact that their should have been no cameras there in the first place, as the rules stated that after hours pick up games are NOT to be recorded? I think that’s the biggest point people are missing here.

Colin, I agree with you 100%. Again, we’re taking Ryan Miller’s word that he was allowed to be recording. Well, what athlete in any sport is going to agree to be recorded on what’s technically his “off-time?”

I’ll bet Nike was more concerned about any possibly inappropriate behavior guys might engage in during their off-hours being recorded rather than this inconsequential dunk. While that makes more sense, everyone’s just ready to accept this foolishness about LeBron’s embarrassment…

The weed thing is such a non-issue, it’s ridiculous. I don’t smoke, but I recognize the fact that at least 80% of the people I know have at some point, so that’s really not a story at all. The issue with the dunk and the bad sportsmanship after the ECF are much bigger deals because of the hits to his imagine he’s taken. Whether you believe him or not, or whether you like athletes to congratulate the other after a fair defeat or not, the bottom line is that the majority of people are starting to believe that LeBron is a sore loser.

Even though it’s absolutely ridiculous, it seems like fans across the country care more about someone being a sore loser or a whiner than if they use steroids.

When I heard about the video, I thought LeBron got posterized from some guy no one heard of: like a full tea-bagging, guy hits him in the face with his balls as he slams it home.

When you actually look at the play, it doesn’t seem to even be LeBron’s man, and instead he’s just a little late going up to block the shot…which has happened thousands, if not millions of times in basketball games the world over.

cavs, have failed once again in trying to put peices around L,,BJ, not to mention we’re finally starting to see how BJ really is as a person, BJ will never surpass Michael Jordan as the greatest player he’ll never even surpass Kobe,

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